Re: (FT) Point Value for Hulls

Jeremy Seeley wrote:

> With all of the talk about Escorts, Capitals, Carriers, whatever...
size
> classes, it has made me wonder about the mass cost for hulls.
>
> The official rule is that mass equals cost, so a 85-mass ship costs a
base
> of 85 points, a 20,000-mass ship costs 20,000 points.
>
> It seems to me that the size vs. point cost issue could be solved by
making
> the cost more realistic.  What I propose is that the mass cost be
squared
> (if not cubed), because bigger means bigger in proportion.  For
example, say
> I have an object that is 6 feet long, 1/2 foot wide, and weighs 8
pounds (in
> this case, the object is a sword with random dimensions).  If I were
to make
> it 12 feet long, its other dimensions would be increased as well, to 1
foot
> wide, and 32 pounds.	Well, my math might be off....
>

In FT your are not doubling the dimensions when you double the mass, you
are
doubling the mass.

>
>
> Opinions anyone?  I have just come up with this idea, and have yet to
> playtest it, but it seems to be more realistic.

It has no basis in reality, you may be surprised to hear this, but a
60,000
tonne steel hull for a ship is about twice as expensive as a 30,000
tonne steel
hull for a ship.  The reason that there were more tonnes of destroyers
than
battleships was that it took less time to build a tonne of destroyer
than a
tonne of battleship.

I wish I could remember the source, but I read that, per tonne,
battleships were
the least expensive vessels.  Battleship production was restricted by
the number
of yards that could lay them down, and the long lead time for the guns
and armor
plate.

Encouraging the use of small ships in FT is very difficult, outside of a